RECOIL Exclusive. New retention holster from Safariland

The middle finger presses upward on the black tab below the trigger guard as the pistol is gripped, unlocking the retention device

Safariland today unveiled their new retention holster, due to be rolled out to stores in January. Aimed at the civilian user, it features a well-designed locking mechanism that is cleared when the user takes a firing grip on the weapon, without having to press buttons, twist the gun or undo a thumb break. We got to try it out with both a blue gun and a G17 and it’s about as intuitive as it gets, holding onto the gun securely, yet releasing it as soon as we grabbed the weapon to draw. We tried it both strong hand and weak hand only – both worked.

We’ve always stayed clear of retention holsters, unless there was a pressing need for them, as they usually require learning a new draw technique which might be confusing when everything goes pear-shaped. With this design, there’s no additional steps and the actual locking mechanism has been proven for many years on Safariland’s duty holsters. At an MSRP of less than 50 bucks, it begs the question of why wouldn’t you use a retention device for a CCW piece?